York city school superintendent: Thankful for recent successes

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I have been reflecting upon the many successes the School District of the City of York has been able to celebrate since last year.

We are thankful that our students are well on their way to improving reading and mathematics proficiency, decreasing discipline incidents, and increasing their graduation rates. These results have come from major efforts by students and from their teachers and administrators using best practices to improve teaching and learning.

We are thankful for the increased communications with parents/guardians, agencies and organizations. These have included community conversations, new partnerships, and increased visibility of the district throughout the county, state and nation.

We are thankful for the collaboration among all stakeholders to raise expectations for academic standards, implementation of the K-8 model, a dress code, attendance, technology use, student/teacher relationships, and care for meeting the special needs of all students.

We are thankful for student commitments to seek education beyond high school as they take the SAT, retake the PSSA, demonstrate appropriate behavior, attend school regularly, earn service learning hours and projects, and achieve an acceptable grade point average to continue learning.

We are thankful for the many federal and state resources, numerous grants, volunteer hours, mentoring services, financial aid awards and donations that have supported our vision and day-to-day operations, partnerships and innovative projects.

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And we have another important reason to give thanks: We have agreed as a learning community to become a premier school district -- one in which failure is not an option as we deliver success for all students.

For these successes, we express our thanks -- to our students, their families, our community members, and our school district personnel who work so hard to educate our students to meet 21st century challenges and dreams!

DR. DEBORAH L. WORTHAMSUPERINTENDENTSCOOL DISTRICT OF THE CITY OF YORK